The Bible a Guide.

What is the world? a wildering maze,
Where sin has track'd ten thousand ways,
Her victims to ensnare—
All broad, and winding, and aslope,
All tempting with perfidious hope,
All ending in despair.
Millions of pilgrims throng these roads,
Bearing their baubles, or their loads
Down to eternal night.
page 68 One little path that never bends,
Narrow, and rough, and steep, ascends
From darkness into light.
Is there no guide to show this path?
The Bible! He alone who hath
The Bible need not stray:
But he who hath and will not give
That lamp of life to all who live,
Himself shall lose the way.

J. M.

A Noble Sonnet.—

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet, neath a current of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! creation widen'd in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay conceal'd,
Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find,
Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood reveal'd
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?
Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife,
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?